In January of this year, the Canadian charity Transforming Faces organised a medical training trip to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Canadian volunteers from the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the University of Toronto met with a local medical team, gave lectures to medical residents, and provided recommendations to optimize team care, treatment plans and clinical care for all patients.

Transforming Faces has partnered with the Yekatit 12 Hospital in Addis Ababa since 2007. The local medical team at Yekatit performs cleft lip and palate surgery as well as long-term rehabilitation on patients from all over the country, from young children to the middle aged.

Babies born with cleft lip and palate sometimes suffer discrimination and marginalisation during their lives, and the comprehensive care they receive truly is life-changing: “My life begins today”, said a 46 year-old man, after the local medical team had finished his surgery.

Transforming Faces provides free multidisciplinary cleft lip and palate care through local partners in developing countries. Support from their donors not only funds surgeries and rehabilitation for children with cleft lip and palate in developing countries, but also provides training opportunities for local medical teams, making the world a better place one individual at a time.